


Rebuild you from clay.

by JMA



Series: When your Mountain has worn down to sand, I will rebuild you from clay. [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aftermath, Angst, Art, Betrayal, Challenging content, Darkfic., Existential Crisis, Fallen Angel Aziraphale (Good Omens), Fallen Angels, Hope, I Will Eat Your Heart, M/M, Other, Philosophy, Recovery, Religious Guilt, Sexual Content, blowjob, exploration of good and evil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-14 17:50:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19278376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JMA/pseuds/JMA
Summary: Crowley has a naked fallen Angel in his bed. And hands around his throat.After the events of 'Apple' neither of them is what they were, yet both need to decide what they will become.COMPLETE





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Из глины](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20582648) by [bangbangbaby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bangbangbaby/pseuds/bangbangbaby)



> This is a follow on from 'Apple' and will not make sense without reading that first.
> 
> That was intended to be a one-shot, but it seems that a niggling bit of hope wouldn't let go.  
> Special thanks to Lyrical Soul for all of her help
> 
> This work is non-linear. Beware.  
> .  
> READ 'APPLE' FIRST
> 
> This work has been translated into Russian by the ineffable bangbangbaby!  
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/20582648/chapters/48863567

When your mountain has worn down to sand, I will rebuild you from clay.

 

He sat on the grass in the sunshine, wrists resting on bony knees, taking himself apart piece by piece. Simple, really, like shedding one's skin. But terrifying all the same 

 

They'd gone centuries without seeing each other in the past. Before. But now the years crawled slowly over broken glass.

"Flensed" by Yira Allen stood over 21ft tall and was best seen standing close at the bottom, looking up. It was chaos and beauty tearing it's way through pain. 

Crowley pushed his glasses down his nose to properly look up at it. He'd gone on a quiet afternoon; the piece and the artist's reputation meant he had to wait until the interest died down before he'd come here himself.  
It was beautiful. Abstract and crowding, and he could imagine the petit hands that painted it, arms covered in blue and red to the elbow; bruises, blood and paint.

He opened his mouth slightly, pushing his tongue to his lips and scented the air, willed himself to stay still long before he heard the former Angel approach  
"Beautiful, isn't it? Aziraphale said, his voice level and calm, "They take all their pain and turn it into something beautiful. Transformative."  
Crowley made a dismissive noise. "Pain? Human pain? It's a drop in the ocean compared to what we feel. I thought you'd gotten that by now "

Aziraphale was angry, and trying to be patient. Crowley could tell this without even looking at him. He'd always been able to read him.

"No, they can't," he replied, "But they take as much can bear and more. She took everything you could do to her and still she made this."

Aziraphale knew, then. Crowley had been trying to see if he could he really, truly evil when he met Yira. She bore the brunt of his frustration and anger and whatever was left after Aziraphale left. Crowley got back in Hell's good/bad books for that, and the commendation made him vaguely nauseous.  
"You think what she went through was worth it to make this?"  
" No." Crowley could hear a storm front of anger behind Aziraphale's voice. "I think that instead of using the pain to destroy, the way you do, she used it to make something amazing. What have Demons ever made?"  
He snapped, finally looking at Aziraphale.

"I made you."

For a moment their furious gazes met.  
Aziraphale turned and walked away. Crowley had the bizarre notion that if he'd looked back one of them would turn to salt.

The first thing Aziraphale ever ate on Earth was an olive. Crowley had been there, but he doubted Aziraphale had ever known. The local chieftain had sent around trays of food and the Angel had been holding the olive for about ten minutes, probably planning to discretely dispose of it when he finished talking to whoever the hell that was. Crowley had looked over to see Aziraphale absently pop it into his mouth, unconsciously mirroring the clansman he had been talking to. Crowley had expected him to gag and was watching eagerly when Aziraphale's expression shifted to something euphoric, bordering on divine. Then the Angel looked around guilty, missing Crowley entirely, smiled, and grabbed another olive.

The first thing Crowley ever ate was an oyster.  
They'd been in Rome shortly after the Crucification (grisly business, that) and Crowley had been surprised when Aziraphale approached him for what appeared to be a friendly chat. It wasn't the first time they'd spoken, far from it, but it was the first that felt purely social in nature. Crowley was amused by the slightly drunk Angel who offered to "tempt him" and after a jug or three of house brown he'd spilled the beans on why he didn't eat, much to the amusement of Aziraphale. It had nothing to do with being against the rules...  
"All I'm saying is, what goes in, must come back out again."  
Aziraphale giggled, the alcohol going to his head in a way Crowley found oddly endearing.  
"It wouldn't exactly take a miracle to magic it elsewhere"  
Crowley laughed outright, imagining (which he didn't know at the time was a skill no other demon possessed) the shit magically appearing somewhere random. Aziraphale caught up with him and spluttered horrified objections.  
"No, not like that!"  
"Like what then?"  
"Just..no..I didn't mean," Aziraphale was laughing properly now, " Anyway, what I mean is that a little .. discomfort..later is worth it."  
Unbidden, Crowley remembered the look on the Angel's face several lifetimes ago. One olive..  
"Ok, ok, one oyster then!"  
Wasn't he the one meant to be doing the tempting?  
The oyster had the consistency of warm phlegm and choked him on the way down.  
Choking.

Choking.  
Fingers like steel wrapped around his throat.  
Eyes blazing.  
Aziraphale had finally woken up.


	2. Chapter 2

Crowley was making tea, mostly to give himself some breathing room. His throat burned and even with his demonic healing he would still feel Aziraphale's fingers around his neck, where he tried to separate Crowley's head from his body with his bare hands. He'd looked at his reflection in the stainless steel kettle and it looked as red and raw as it felt.

Aziraphale was on the sofa, naked as he had been since That Night. He'd been asleep off and on for three weeks, and almost catatonic and unresponsive in his rare waking moments. Being almost decapitated was the most interaction they'd had since...  
The teaspoon chimed off the side of the cup like prayer bells. The last three weeks had been... empty..for Crowley. Usually he felt a sense of satisfaction at the end of a job, but this had been different. His life's work and, if he was being honest with himself, shaping Aziraphale had changed him in ways he wasn't entirely sure of.

He walked over, within striking distance, and tried to hand the cup to the fallen Angel. Aziraphale stared into nothing. Crowley placed the cup on the table in front of him, then moved to the furthest armchair. He took an agonizing sip tea to calm his nerves, using the pain as a focus.

Aziraphale stirred. Then spoke softly.  
"Is this how you felt since you... fell? All this pain, all this time?"  
"Yes" Crowley rasped. When he ran over their probable first conversation, which he did a thousand times in the last few weeks, he didn't expect this. Anger, recriminations, maybe even tears. But... concern? Compassion? 

Aziraphale didn't speak again for another three days.

 

He knew something was wrong when he opened the front door.  
"Aziraphale?"  
The only light in the building was the sunlight coming in from the Atrium. A shaft of sunlight slashed across the floor. The air was thick with fine particles passing through the sunlight. As he walks towards the light something fluttered down.  
Battered, torn and almost unrecognizable.  
A Philodendron leaf.

Crowley has seen battlefields with less carnage. As he stepped through the doorway, potting mix, shredded stalks and stems cracked under his feet. The air was heavily scented with burnt sap, dirt and the gunpowder smell of magic. A barely identifiable piece of Dypsis lutescens 'Golden Cane palm' was embedded in the light well. An ironically named Spathiphyllum 'Little Angel' had fallen in such as way that is seemed to be trying to shield a Oncidium 'Dancing Lady' , a futility as both plants had the sap exploded out of them. Even the psudobulbs.  
All around the room were pieces of Ficus elastica, Sansevieria trifasciata and Epipremnum aureum.  
Those plants had lived in fear, but not even the worst nightmare Crowley had promised could live up to their actual demise.  
And in the middle of it all Aziraphale sat shaking.

Crowley felt as if he'd been punched. He lo.. he care.. he raised those plants, some of them from seed! His first attempt at speech came out as something of a wheeze. He tried again.  
"Well, well, look who's becoming a proper Demon" It could have sounded a lot more menacing in a steady voice.  
"I was thinking," Aziraphale said faintly. "I trusted you."  
Finally, something going to script.  
"I never lied."  
"You're evil."  
"You're giving it a good shot, yourself."  
Aziraphale put down the leaf he had been holding and looked at Crowley. Crowley was thankful his eyes were hidden behind his glasses.  
"I'm not a Demon"  
"You're not an Angel, and this certainly looks demonic."  
" I'm not Evil, I just...hurt"  
Crowley felt his lip curl almost involuntary. "For someone so smart, how can you be so stupid. What do you think Evil is? Pain, Angel! It's just pain pushed outwards. Same pain you're feeling, being cut off. All of us."  
Aziraphale's let out a short soft " oh". Then, "I wasn't thinking of God. I was thinking of you."


	3. Chapter 3

On the first Thursday of the month, The Soho Writer's Collective meets at Aziraphale's bookshop. This is new, and utterly unfathomable. Crowley didn't understand. When he had Fallen, it took him a very long time just to stop screaming long enough to form coherent thought, the pain had been so great. The bowels of Hell were still filled with those Fallen who had never been able to gather enough of themselves together to function other than as a screaming horror, trapped within their own agony. There were creatures down there who were the physical embodiment of the rage and horror Crowley carried with him every day since the Fall.

Aziraphale has always been something of a patron of Soho's art scene. He had even taken Nanny Ashtoreth to see a pantomime (a bloody pantomime!) at a small amateur theatre company under the guise of sharing notes on Warlock. They'd seen each other more in the last few years than they had in the previous millennia, with meetings starting as clandestine briefings on rooftops, to the odd drink, afternoon tea, or dinner and a show. They still had to be careful. Aziraphale had never shaken the fear that Heaven might be watching. Crowley could see the conflict and hesitation that defined their interactions, and wanted to shake him senseless.

You go too fast for me, Crowley

But some nights, like this one, Crowley could imagine that Heaven and Hell didn't exist, that they were two companions out together, answerable to no one. It was a nice fantasy.

The Angel shed his Brother Francis persona when not with the family, but Crowley couldn't be bothered with all that gender switching, and kept Ashtoreth's body most of the time. He generally preferred a male presentation, especially if he'd been out drinking, but if he was careful about not consuming anything, he found he didn't care all that much about the plumbing enough to keep changing it. The old duck at the front of house seemed a bit surprised Mr Fell had brought a woman as his date, but by intermission she given her a wink and a smile, indicating she'd come to some satisfactory conclusion about Crowley's gender and inclinations. 

Bloody Soho.

"You can't sit like that when you're being a woman" Aziraphale hissed.

"The Hell I can't. These stockings are migrating downwards." She'd not been particularly discreet when she tried to pull up the crotch of the offending pantyhose, making the old duck smirk. "I should have gone with garters."

Aziraphale went a little pale.  
   
Crowley felt a flutter of triumph.

He'd gone back to the theatre a few months ago, looking for answers. Crowley had tried going back to work; not “The Work”- Hell had been suspiciously silent since the Apocalypse-that-wasn't, but the consultancy business he often used to facilitate The Work. He always had a half dozen projects on the go to keep his mind busy, but he found that nothing kept his attention for long. Aziraphale had walked out of Crowley's life leaving him nothing but shredded plants and a handful of emotions he didn't understand. Crowley found himself devoting more time trying to figure out what the hell the Angel was playing at. Which took him back to the Theatre and to the same harmless old duck who had given him a right bollocksing out.

She'd registered that he and Nanny Ashtoreth were the same person, without any great surprise. He guessed that being a part of the theater scene in bloody Soho probably gave you a leg up when looking beyond gender.

"You think you're the first bastard to break someone's heart and come crawling back, do you?" She poked him hard in the chest with a fleshy finger that he considered breaking off. "And bad enough if it was one of my lads. But Mr Fell? How could you when he's..."  
 Sshe seemed to sense she'd gone too far, or was about to. Hers wasn't the last door to be slammed in his face.  
   
All over Soho, even a vague description of Aziraphale was enough to close doors and shut down conversations. It seemed that the true residents of Soho, not those who'd blown in on the winds of gentrification, but those who fit into the place in a way they didn't fit anywhere else, were fiercely protective of the bookshop owner, and closed ranks to keep Crowley out.

Soho was Aziraphale's special place. Aziraphale kept his bookshop here even after the place took a nosedive after the cholera outbreak, and the last of the gentry moved out and the rest of London's outcasts moved in. Angels loved everyone, obviously, but with the vaguely detached way that would, say, think nothing of the death of a single dove. But Aziraphale was especially fond of those that didn't really belong anywhere. This was as familiar to Crowley as his own name.

What he hadn’t realised was that Soho felt the same way..

Humans had this absolutely beautiful way of looking at the impossible, deciding that it couldn't be possible, and just paving over the whole lot as though it didn't happen. It was their tiny brain's way of dealing with the miracles of the universe and explaining it away using something mundane, like physics or superstition or paleontology.

But every now and then, they’d look at things almost out of the corner of their eye. They can't look at it directly or even speak about it. But they saw and they knew. Apparently Soho looked at the mysterious Mr Fell.

True Soho looked, and saw through Aziraphale's frankly pathetic cover story of a bookshop passed down through generations of the same family. Which wasn't the surprising part, given that Mr Fell didn't strike anyone as someone inclined to get a woman pregnant with a child who, in some out of the way place, would grow up and arrive suddenly as the new Mr Fell, complete with almost identical features.  
And wardrobe.  
   
The humans of Soho never spoke of this, but believed enough to shut down any possible threat Crowley and his questions may have posed towards their bookseller.  
   
Crowley lifted his binoculars. From this spot he could see just enough of the back room to know Aziraphale was pouring tea for the Writers Club, as though he was an ordinary person, not a supernatural being that had had his heart ripped out by his own god. To the best of his knowledge Aziraphale never tried to write anything himself. Angels, like Demons, didn't create. He had admired Crowley's unique imagination, but couldn't do it himself.

But there he was pouring tea and listening to a fat balding man share a truly terrible sonnet about his wife who had just left him. Nodding along and offering encouragement when he should have been screaming. Every other Demon had screamed. Crowley had screamed.

Aziraphale wasn't an Angel anymore. Couldn't be. But he wasn't a Demon either. Any doubt about that had been thoroughly erased by the salt barrier that kept him out of the bookshop, but that Aziraphale could cross freely.

It wasn't just the salt. Even though Soho's lips were sealed on the subject of one Mr. Ezra Fell, he'd pieced together some of Aziraphale's new life.

Aziraphale brought thermos flasks of tea to the Prossies who worked Green Street. He volunteered at the Club Drug Clinic. He'd been talking to a priest at the queer church on Farm Street.

In short, Aziraphale was acting just like he had before everything ended. Holier even.

Watching Aziraphale's Writer's Club was boring. Watching Aziraphale talk to the boys and girls working Green Street was boring, except when the new Polish guy mistook Aziraphale for a punter. Crowley had even disguised himself as an addict to see Aziraphale's volunteer work, but all he got out of it was a forceful ejection, and bored.

Aziraphale and Soho kept him out of his life. So Crowley sat on rooftops with a bottle of wine and a pair of binoculars, looking at all the boring bits he was able to see, convinced he was missing something. It was pathetic.

But he couldn't seem to stop himself.


	4. Chapter 4

Fraternising!" 

The word came out like the bark of an angry dog.  
They were both scared.

Crowley and Aziraphale had been spending an awful lot of time together, quite by accident. They'd always met up throughout the centuries, but since the formation of 'The Arrangement' it seemed to be happening more and more.

All during the horrendous fourteenth century they'd run into each other, and quite frankly that had been the only plus side to the entire damn century.

Aziraphale was interesting. The Angel was a contradiction; good, but sometimes unthinkingly cruel. Pure and holy, but also something of a hedonist who was very careful to stay this side of gluttony and sloth. Crowley encouraged him, tempted him, with the idle idea that it might just be a bit fun to bring the Angel down. He just hadn't expected to enjoy his company as much as he did.

They got drunk and discussed philosophy. Pride and jealousy brought down the Morning Star, but Crowley had just asked questions. He'd listened to Lucifer and imagined the world he described. That was all. 

Aziraphale listened to him when he posed his questions and tried his best to answer them. Crowley had the feeling that if the Angel had been capable of disobedience, he might have some questions of his own. That was fascinating.

And then he nearly ruined it all with a stupid pear! 

It had been a momentary lapse in concentration. Temporary insanity. He couldn't get the tase to pear juice off his lips 

And if Hell had been watching he'd have been utterly done for. Crowley to thinking about insurance, about the Holy Water. Just the thought of it filled him with existential dread, but if push came to shove he need something. For the first time he realised that his Long Game with Aziraphale was putting him at odds with The Work.

"Fraternising!" He wasn't putting his skin on the line over fraternising! 

He'd ranted and raved when he got back to his flat, and then, when he ran out of steam, he went to sleep right through the rest of the 1800's. 

 

Crowley couldn't sleep. 

He technically didn't need to, but he always had. It did something to his brain, allowed him to think in ways most Demons were totally unable to. It made him, well, him.

Now he drank too much and didn't sleep. He couldn't yell at his plants for relief; Aziraphale had completely destroyed them, and the atrium was starting to smell of rotting vegetation.  
He didn't like going to the bedroom either, as the spectre of the naked screaming Angel was still haunting his bed. 

Crowley couldn't focus. He was angry and frustrated. 

"Thisss." He'd started talking to himself. Bad sign. "Thiss isn't how I thought it would be. Did I think? Wass there ever an after?"

He was good at planning, but this plan, despite going swimmingly, didn't deliver... what? He didn't know, and that was part the problem.

He was pissed. Royally smashed. And angry. He wanted to destroy something beautiful. He wanted to rage. He remembered feeling the same way when he had watched Aziraphale's bookshop burn.

He laughed. 

Bookshop. 

Burning.

Brilliant idea.

Crowley couldn't make it over the threshold, but a Molotov cocktail would do the trick.

"Fuck you, Aziraphale!" He yelled as he walked the streets of London. People got out of his way. For the first time in months he felt powerful. Alive. He had a plan. Crowley was going to burn the world down. Aziraphale's world, anyway.

"Azirrrrraphale!" Crowley called out, waving the half empty bottle of vodka that was his drink of choice, and soon to be flaming missile. "Anybodeeee home?"

Maybe he wasn't home. 

The light came on downstairs. The front door opened.

Oh, he was home. Maybe they were going to fight. Or fuck. Maybe

"Crowley." Aziraphale looked like shit. 

"You look like shite, mate" 

Aziraphale's eyes were red and it had been clear he had been weeping. This wasn't god-doesn't-love-me agony. Aziraphale was sad. 

"Wass wrong?" Crowley slurred, lowering his bottle and stumbling towards his friend. Former friend. Whatever.

"He died," Aziraphale said, softly. "He was my friend and he died." 

Crowley felt a surge of jealousy. And, having been in exactly the same position as Aziraphale not too long ago, an unexpected wave of empathy. "I'm sorry to hear it."

Aziraphale looked at him with steady, miserable eyes for a few moments. Then said, "Do you want to come inside?"

Crowley did.

 

The Priest's room smelled like sick, and the man had been propped up on several pillows, presumably to help ease the wracking cough that occasionally forced it's way from his chest. 

Crowley had chosen a night with a full moon to make his bedside appearance. A dark and stormy night would have been ideal, but the weather had been unseasonably good. Moonlight would have to do.

He'd always considered himself adept at a little drama. Oh, manifestations and all that weren't really his thing, but he'd always thought he could have put on a good show if he'd ever needed to.

Black robes? Check.

Bit of firelight in the ol' snake eyes? Check.

Dramatic entrance from the shadows! Double check!

The priest let out a soft chuckle. "So you're Crowley then? .

That was not in the plan. 

"He told you about me?" That came out a bit more conversational than Crowley intended. But all of his carefully thought out plans had gone out the window when he realised the implications of the Priest seeing him all Demon-y and knowing who he was. "He told you about himself? That he was an Angel? Bloody hell."

"It was a bit of a surprise."

Crowley let out an amused huff in spite of himself. "If he'd shown you his true self it would have melted your eyeballs, you know. What did you ever do to warrant a divine visitation?"

"He needed someone to talk to..." The priest trailed off into a wracking cough  
. Crowley handed him a glass of water from the bedside, resisting the urge to throw it in the man's face when he gave him an amused smile. "I started working in Soho during the Aids crisis in the 80's. I've been here long enough to know who he is. He knew the work I had done in the community, and thought I might be sympathetic."

Crowley laughed at that. Humans and their assumptions. "He's not actually queer. Not the way you lot think of it. Gender isn't really a thing for us."

"The young kids tell me gender isn't a 'thing' here anymore, either."

Crowley inclined his head in concession.

The priest lifted himself up, and Crowley suppressed the traitorous urge to make him more comfortable on his pillows. The old man's skin was like parchment, stretched over features that would have been handsome in full health, but had taken on an ethereal beauty this close to death.

"No," the priest said, "it's not exactly the same. But I spent a good portion of my life working with people who risked being punished for who they loved. People who lost their families, their jobs, had been excluded from their faith." Another coughing fit interrupted him, but Crowley waited. "The Church hasn't always been...kind to those who have loved. I image he thought I might understand."

"You're dying."

"Good of you to notice."

The priest's eyes sparkled with intelligence and humour. Crowley can see why Aziraphale would like him. Crowley forced himself to dislike the man purely out of spite.

He fell back in his old trick, temptation through honesty. "Do you think you're going to Heaven or Hell? Heaven, for all of your good deeds? Or Hell, because you doubt the Divine?"

A chuckle turned into a cough, but it didn't quash the humour in the priest's voice. "How can I doubt the existence of God? I've spent the past year counselling an actual Angel. And I currently have a Demon in my bedroom."

Crowley smiled, but it was not a nice smile. "Oh, I never said you doubted the existence of God. As you say, you've had more proof than most mortals ever get." 

He leaned in close and smelled the death on the man's skin.

"You doubt that God is right, and She will not stand for that." The priest's eyes widened in shock, but Crowley wasn't done with him. "You work with people who lost everything because of who they loved. But you comforted yourself with the idea that at least Heaven would forgive them. Then you met an Angel and he damned you."

The priest understood. Crowley saw it in the tears that would soon be shed. 

"He damned you because he is good. Proper good, the way you only can be when you have a choice. He was good, and he was in love and God will never, ever forgive him."

He leaned in an whispered the awful truth.

"You think God is wrong."

Crowley's eyes showed the fire and brimstone and rage. They showed himself.


	5. Chapter 5

The bookshop wasn't blazing. Crowley was three sheets to the wind. Aziraphale was in mourning. And his glasses were missing. Why did nothing in his life ever go to fucking plan? 

"Ineffable" he mumbled.

"What?" Aziraphale asked, looking blearily up from the glass he was pouring.

"Nothing."

Aziraphale handed him a glass and poured another. Crowley wasn't sure he needed to drink anymore, but certainly wasn't going to sober up. He held the glass but didn't drink. Compromise. Options.

"I'd known him for years. Casually, of course, until recently. It isn't a good idea to get too close to them."

"They die on you. Short lives, humans."

"Rather." Aziraphale leant on the desk and stared at his glass a few moments before taking a huge drink. "I knew better. I knew it was foolish to care about one of them too much. But he was a good man and I needed someone." He very carefully did not look at Crowley. Both of them knew it.

"You wanted someone to understand you." Crowley's words were bitter in his mouth. He rinsed them out with vodka and spat it back into his glass.

"Yes." Aziraphale took another long drink before looking at Crowley. He looked like a man in need of absolution. Crowley had no idea what the hell he was meant to do about it.

"I told him, Crowley," Aziraphale confessed softly, "I told him what I was. We're not mean to do that, it ... interferes with Faith." 

"By giving them confirmation that the is real, yeah." It was the main reason that direct manifestation had been frowned on by both sides in recent times. Crowley snorted. "I wouldn't worry about it too much, Angel, we used to do that sort of thing all the time. It wasn't that big a deal. I'm sure he had enough Faith left over to see him through."

"I had thought so. Or perhaps I was just being selfish. I just wanted someone to understand. But I think it hurt him in the end."

Crowley rolled his eyes. Aziraphale had someone who knew about pain, and not in a pathetic human capacity either. Someone who understood true, soul-searing pain. He hadn't needed the priest. 

"Of course you hurt him. Haven't you been listening to anything I've said?" He was starting to feel angry again. He's really, honestly thought Aziraphale would get it by now. "We hurt, so we hurt."

"I never meant to."

"But you did anyway." 

"What have I done, Crowley? What am I now? I've been trying." Aziraphale's eyes shone with drink and tears. "He reminded me that I wasn't the only one to suffer. Reminded me of all the ways humanity had overcome, created, and transformed. I've been reading, Crowley."

"And how did that work out for you, Aziraphale? More importantly, how did that work out for Father James?"

Aziraphale's face flushed with guilt and shame. Crowley put is drink down, jammed his hands into his pockets and wished desperately for his glasses back. Coming here had been a bad idea.

"What do you want from me, Aziraphale? Do you want me to drag you to Hell? Yeah, it was selfish. Is that what you want me to say?"

"I tried to be good."

"And you fucked up. Is that what you want, Angel, you want to be punished?" Crowley growled, stalking forward, hips swinging like a cobra ready to strike. Aziraphale glared and began to speak.

So Crowley struck.

He pushed Aziraphale hard, to the column between the sofa and the bookshelf, his face inches away and snarling. They'd been in this position before, Crowley realised, and just like last time Aziraphale's eyes were fixed firmly on his mouth. This time they were not interrupted by a former nun.  
Crowley moved closer, almost close enough. "I won't offer you absolution. But you can pray for forgiveness if you like."

He lifted one hand to cup Aziraphale's face, almost tenderly, watching the play of emotions across his face. Then he slid the hand into Aziraphale's hair and held tight, using his other hand to push down on his shoulder. 

"Oh," Aziraphale breathed. And sank to his knees.

Crowley studied the intense gaze looking up at him, eyes both familiar and foreign. He had no idea what the Angel saw in his own face. No idea what his unmasked eyes were saying. Aziraphale looked almost ready to weep at whatever he saw. Crowley had never seen anything more beautiful in six thousand years.

He loosened his grip on Aziraphale's hair, unzipped his trousers, and put his flaccid penis to the Angel's lips.

I wish I could have been hard for this, he thought. Aziraphale deserved that. 

Aziraphale kissed his limp flesk, softly, gently, while still looking up at him. Then he reached up and took him in hand. Crowley let out a ragged breath. He knew about debauchery, although he declined to be an active participant, and the sight of Aziraphale on his knees in front of a Demon should have qualified, but instead of disgust, Crowley felt an almost serene stillness. Those touches and kisses, those eyes, the firm and gently way Aziraphale held him, soft and trembling at first, but now harder and bolder. Crowley felt as if he were crumbling to dust.   
Aziraphale took it in his mouth, casting one look upwards. Don't look at me like that, Crowley wanted to say, but words didn't come. He felt everything, his whole being crumbling downwards into that soft and gentle mouth. 

He barely registered becoming hard. It was an insignificant detail in his total destruction. 

Aziraphale moved his mouth and his hand, pulling his face away to lick gently at the underside of the head, and breathe him in. There was a tightness pooling around his groin that matched a tightness in his heart.

"Who?" The word sounded like gravel and felt like a landslide. "Who taught you this? Who have you done this for?" 

Aziraphale pulled back, his hand still working. His eyes, his damn eyes, were unreasonable.

"No one."  
"Don't lie to me. Not now. I'm not an idiot."  
There was heat in Aziraphale's voice and eyes when he replied. "Neither am I." Then he smiled, gently, kindly, and kissed him there again. His soft words punctuated with kisses and licks. "Books." Kiss. "There are books that have been around for centuries with devilish detail." Lick. "Pictures, even." Suck.  
"Cinema. A particularly risqué play put on by one of the Soho theatre companies." Aziraphale's strokes were becoming surer now, stronger. "I have been a part of this world for as long as you have, Crowley. I am not an innocent." Crowley felt his throat tighten. Aziraphale suckled and teased him.  
"I've had offers, and some of those have been very, very graphic."   
Crowley's hands tightened in Aziraphale's hair by reflex. Those sure, steady strokes kept coming, destroying him gently and firmly.  
"I turned them all down, of course. But I've thought about this for a long time." Aziraphale brushed his lips against him. "What it would be like to taste you."   
Then he didn't say anything for a while. Just did what he wanted and what Crowley never knew he wanted. Everything crumbled and reassembled over and over, and ever downwards. The physical sensation was almost nothing compared to what Crowley was feeling, too large and intimate to be named. But the result was the same, a desperate jerk and thrust. 

He broke into a thousand stars.

Aziraphale helped ease him down until they were kneeling face to face. Crowley rested his head against Aziraphale's shoulder as Aziraphale cleaned them both with a handkerchief.

"I'm so sorry I blamed you for how I felt," Aziraphale said unexpectedly. Crowley let out a ragged breath. "We would have ended up together even if it had taken another six thousand years. I could never have stopped myself from loving you. It only would have gotten worse,"

Crowley chuckled. His whole body felt warm and tingling. "You think God was wrong to punish us for this?"  
A sharp intake of breath from Aziraphale. " I...I never said that." 

Crowley rocked back in his heels, still heady but very sure he was right. "You do though. Your priest friend thought the same thing." 

Aziraphale looked at him sharply. "You never met James."

"I never said that. Had a nice chat, me and him, about .."

"You bastard!" Aziraphale snarled. " He died in torment, convinced he was going to Hell for questioning the will of God. You..."

"I had the exact same conversation we were having right here, minus the bloody blowjob." Crowley stood, all peace gone. "I only did what I've always done. Asked questions. He supplied his own bleeding answers, and if he didn't like them..." 

"What you've always done?" Aziraphale bit back, voice and body rising, "It was his immortal soul, Crowley. He was my friend and a good man. He should have been assured of his place in Heaven."

"Heaven doesn't want 'good men'. Heaven wants obedience. You're a "good man" Aziraphale, with your charity work, and your dug addicts, and your stupid fucking writer's group. And Heaven doesn't want you!" 

Crowley crowded in close. Aziraphale stood his ground. "And it doesn't want me either. All I did was all I'd ever done. His immortal soul was no different to the millions of others I helped in their downward slide. I corrupt everything I go near." 

"You could choose.."  
"No. I can't..." Crowley's voice broke, "I can't be anything other than what God made me."

And that was the simple truth, Crowley realised it now. He had been fighting against his essential nature. Aziraphale was to blame, trying to tempt him into crepes and art and the beauty of the world, but he had gone along with it. He rescued doves and saved the world and defied Satan himself and it hasn't been enough. 

It hasn't been enough.  
He was still evil.  
So evil was what he was going to be.


	6. Chapter 6

The artist's name was Yira Allen.

First there was a canvas. He thought the term 'blank canvas' was idiotic the way people usually used the metaphor. It ignored everything that happened to create it in the first place. A canvas, he learns, can be anything. Come from anywhere.

Paint is applied. A pallet knife works just as well as a brush, depending on the effect you're going for. And there are so, so many colours. Especially as they work into each other.

He understands the mechanics of it. Tried to appreciate the beauty of destroying something. Convince himself he was creating something new. She'd laughed at him with blood on her teeth. "I make myself," she said, spitting blood on the paper.

He tried to remember what it felt like when Aziraphale screamed the moment he was cut off from God, but he felt like he was the one screaming.

Try. Harder.

Crowley tore images from his memory; the Holocaust, the Inquisition, Cambodia, the entire fucking fourteenth century. But those had been made by man. He tried to find his own rage, the one that had burned inside him from the moment he Fell.

I will paint you with my own blood if I have to. Crowley can't remember if he said it to her or if she said it to him.

And then one night it seemed that there was nothing left of him and everything left of her. She was drawing Angels from a rooftop in Brno and he had nothing left but a feather.

"Could you forgive me?" He hadn't meant to speak. He certainly had no right.  
   
"No." She didn't look at him "You'll just have to live with yourself, just like everyone else." Charcoal scratched across paper.

He felt sick to his stomach.

Hell wanted him back. They were willing to overlook his… prior indiscretions... and welcome him back to the fold. Report back to the office as soon as convenient. Or inconvenient.

He couldn't do it. But he couldn't keep going as he was. Crowley stood in front of a twenty-one foot painting in the Saatchi Gallery, and felt insignificant and raw. And then, when he didn't know if he was going to vomit all over the ugly grey floor, his tongue darted out and caught a familiar scent.

Not now. Not here. Please.

Aziraphale came and left.

Crowley had just wanted someone to understand.

 

It was a simple assignment. Crowley was to meet with a Demon in Caffa, then catch a trading galley back to Sicily and let them go. He'd figured they were trained to bite a Pope or something. He hadn't really looked into it all too much.

There'd been some sort of siege in Caffa in 1346, and even a year later, it looked like something the dog threw up. So Crowley hadn't stayed around to asked questions, just picked up his cage of rats and got the next ship out of there.

Crowley hadn't liked the rats and the rats didn't like him. He named them after Angels he had known. Michael hadn't survives the sea voyage, but Gabriel, Uriel, and Cassiel got released on the docks as promised. Truth be told, they did look a little seasick.

The plague died down in Winter of 1348, but so had over a third of Italy's population. Aziraphale was there by then, doing what he could, but this was bigger than a few miracles could handle. Crowley hated this century with the fiery passion of a thousand suns, and it was only halfway through and looking down.  
   
"Was this one your side or ours?" Aziraphale had asked.   
"Mine. Me. It was my fault. I didn't know." Aziraphale had been horrified, but at the end of the day he returned, exhausted, to the Villa outside Catana rather than the Monastery he'd been staying with. Crowley had been drinking steadily through his dead hosts cellar since shortly after he arrived.  
   
Catana was aflame against the night.  
"What's the point of it all?" Crowley found himself talking out loud. "Why are we here?"  
Aziraphale gave a weary sigh. "Crowley, are you having an existential crisis?"   
"I'm asking your opinion."  
"Italy, or in general?"

Crowley spoke into his drink, but Aziraphale seemed to have no issue hearing him. "General. I know why I'm here."

"Oh, well." Aziraphale put a comforting hand on his arm, before remembering himself and hastily withdrawing. "You and I are generally here to influence humanity to the side of good or evil."  
"Mostly cancelling each other out…"  
"Are we really having that argument again? I've told you a thousand times, I will now be entering into an arrangement with you that interferes with my duties, I have a ..."

" Yeah, yeah, yeah" Crowley waved his hand. " 's not what I was getting at. Is it all about them then? Humanity?"  
"It's about the choices they make. We just present them with options." Aziraphale said it as if he'd rehearsed it. Crowley wasn't convinced.

"And if Eve never ate the apple, what choice would she have in things then?" That was the thing, wasn't it, all the way to their very first conversation. "If you're right, and I'm not saying you are, then Demons exist to give humans the ability to choose. We spend every day in unforgivable agony just to give them a choice, while you lot get to be filled with love? And all either of us are doing is what we're designed to do? How's that fair!?"

"Agony, Crowley? Are you...?"

Stupid. He was stupid. "Forget I said anything."

Aziraphale looked for a moment as if he might pursue, but reconsidered. Instead he said softly, "I suppose it isn't fair. Its ineffable." 

Crowley snorted, downed the rest of his wine, pouring another for himself and one for his adversary.

They drank together in silence for a while.

"Crowley? What did you ask that got you turned away from heaven?"

Crowley looked sharply at Aziraphale. Apparently, he wasn't the only one who was stupid. "Do you really want my question rattling around in your head? There are more exciting ways to Fall if you're keen on it."

"No, you're quite right. I should never have asked."

The thing with questions is that they can't ever be unasked. Crowley knew that.


	7. Chapter 7

Hell's missives became more demanding. 

Crowley pushed open the door to his office for the first time in what felt like a lifetime. Coming back to his flat was like walking into the home of a stranger. He'd furnished the place in the style of the person he was trying to be. Twenty years ago it had been white and minimalist. Now it was grey and moody. Styles changed. Had he?

Crowley sat at his throne. It was absurd, barely matched the decor, was expensive and tacky all at once, and he genuinely liked it.

"Well," he said out loud "at least that's one thing."

On a whim, he grabbed a piece of fresh white paper from the drawer, wrote Anthony J. Crowley and the words 'stupid chair'.

He stared at the paper for a few moments, pen poised to scratch out the words until the paper tore. Instead he made a list.

Stupid chair.  
I do not want to go back to Hell.  
Gardening  
Have capacity for Evil. Don't want it.  
Cinema  
Anything beautiful  
The Bentley. This should have been first.  
I am not Good.  
Queen.  
I miss my friend.

And that was it. All the things Crowley knew, truly knew about himself didn't even fill an A4 sheet of paper. He wasn't sure it was ever going to be enough. 

Crowley made several phone calls. Some were to get the ball rolling, on the off chance Hell could be put off a little while longer, and one call he suspected he'd been putting off far too long already.

 

It was clear that Aziraphale was uncomfortable being there. He'd declined Crowley's offer of a drink, yet fidgeted his hands as though he needed something to occupy them. Crowley slid the folded piece of paper out of his back pocket and handed it to Aziraphale.

"That's all I have. All this time, and that's it." 

"It's woefully incomplete."

Crowley made a not particularly committed noise of enquiry.

"It doesn't say, for instance, that you're kind to animals even though you don't like them." Aziraphale folded the paper. " I doesn't say that you hide your eyes even when you don't need to, because you think it makes you less vulnerable." 

"I've needed to act tough. You know why."

"Yes," Aziraphale said."It also doesn't say that sometimes you can be a bit of an arsehole."

Crowley's lips quirked. Aziraphale swearing was always something of a treat. "It does. Right there.  
Capacity for Evil."

"It's not the same thing, Crowley." Aziraphale stood up to leave. "It's also not my job to fix you."

"I know."

Very carefully, very deliberately, Crowley took his glasses off and folded them into his pocket. A gesture of submission, if that's what it took. He'd rehearsed this, but given his recent performance, he was pretty likely to cock it up.

"I think," he said, "that you're the most remarkable person I've ever met. Do you know how long it took me to form a shape, any shape, after I was cast down? And it's been less that three years, and you're walking around being... you."

"Who else am I supposed to be?" Aziraphale asked with genuine confusion. 

Crowley mirrored him. How was it that Aziraphale could not know? He wasn't the shapeless, spiraling thing that Crowley felt himself to be, that he had assumed came from losing God's love. How?

"I was very angry," Aziraphale continued."I still am. You can be so thoughtless, and I, well, I still don't know where I stand with you. And my relationship with God has... changed. On both ends, I fear. But I've been trying to tell you that we aren't alone! All around you is art, books, cinema, all the little stories about their pain and joy. They may be little, but together they all speak so loudly, Crowley. They say 'We hurt. We suffer. We keep going. We make love.' I always loved their stories, but I never really understood them before "

Crowley shook his head and closed his eyes. It was all wrong. Aziraphale wasn't like him at all. They were parallel lines. He felt Aziraphale's hands on his face, and opened his eyes.

"And I thank you for that. I chose to love you. Even if we had done nothing that night, I would have still loved you. I think Falling was inevitable, given enough time." 

Crowley could see the tension in Aziraphale's body. He wanted to scream at him. He wanted to weep. Instead, he waited.

Aziraphale let out a deep and steady breath. "Crowley, I think I was right to love you. I think God was wrong."

And that was it. Aziraphale's big truth. The same thought that had condemned a priest was setting him free. Crowley could see clearly, like a lit up map on the tube, like a script, like a completed crossword puzzle. Everything in Aziraphale's life, from the flaming sword onwards, had led him to this spot. 

And Crowley knew then that this was not his destination. Aziraphale was looking at him with hope, and a willingness to shine the way forward.

"I'm genuinely glad for you." 

"But?"

And Crowley knew how to make him understand. It would be the worst thing he would ever say in his life, and it would be true.

"I don't love you."

Aziraphale stepped back. "Oh, I see."

For a few moments they said nothing. Then Crowley could see Aziraphale pulling back to himself, his wonderful, remarkable self. 

"Actually, Crowley, I think that's alright. I think I might just keep loving you anyway."

Demons can't cry. Tears boil before they spill, but Crowley's body heaved with sobs. Aziraphale gathered him into his arms and held him tightly.

"I wanted to. I wanted to. I want to."

"It's alright. I know."

"You don't. You're still you." Crowley pulled back and tookAziraphale's face in his hands, "There's nothing left of me. When She left, she took it all. There's nothing left but pain. I thought you would know."

And he was nothing. A black hole which contorted the light, bent and broken, until not even the memory of it was left. He could watch the stars, but only from the dark.

"You're wrong, my darling," Aziraphale whispered in his ear. "There may have once been nothing, but you have made yourself. You are the universe entire. You have imagined yourself into being, and I am in awe of you."

 

In the beginning, there was nothingness, a vast and unimaginable, ineffable nothing. There were no Demons who could Imagine, no Angels who could Choose. 

And then there was. And it was good. 

 

He sat on the grass in the sunshine, wrists resting on bony knees, taking himself apart piece by piece. He didn't know if what he was trying to was possible, but he tried to believe.

He had been loved. Loved enough to bring down an Angel. Believing he was worth it was the hard part. So he tried something simpler.

He sat in the sunshine and imagined the world was different. In this new world, a Demon could love an Angel if he wanted to hard enough. In the warmth of the sun, he imagined that's what love felt like. Not the all encompassing Holy love, but the beautiful every day love. A smile, a smell, a presence.

He imagined his pain wrapped around his heart, like skien of wool, or layers of dry tar that was black and hard, or snakeskin that was too tight.

He shed his skin. All the things he'd done for Hell, all the things he'd done for himself.

He let there be light. Ordinary light. 

When he was done, the world hadn't changed. 

 

Two beings met in St James park.

Heaven and Hell, if they ever existed at all, were nowhere to be seen. All that was there was were six billion people, and them.

They didn't say anything for a while, just sat and fed the ducks. They had a lot to say to each other, but neither of them knew exactly how to start. 

Finally one of them handed the other a brown paper package.

"I made something." Crowley said.

Aziraphale took it. "Crowley..."

"I don't expect things to be how they were, " Crowley said hurriedly. "I don't think they can be. Too much has changed. We've changed." 

"Have you?" Aziraphale asked quietly, studying his face.

Crowley didn't answer. Instead he asked, "Will you come to lunch with me Thursday?"

"I think I'd like that."

Back at the bookstore Aziraphale carefully unwrapped the package with shaking hands. 

The painting was an abstract done by an amateur, someone who had never painted before, but whose imagination could keep a flaming Bentley driving. It was bold and complex, it spoke of pain and loss and regret.

And more than a little hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, thank you and thank you again for making it this far. Please add a little comment letting me know your thoughts and, if you're interested in a little philosophy discussion, have a read and reply to some of the comments that are already here. 
> 
> Another thank you to Lyrical Soul, who helped shape this text and make it legible for others.

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